Seize Your Copy A Great And Terrible Beauty Crafted By Libba Bray Accessible As Ebook

Read with some amazing ladies and a traveling book, hosted by sitelinkJulie over at sitelinkPages and Pens!

A Great and Terrible Beauty is exactly why I am scared to read earlier decades published novels that I remember were super hyped and popular.
This also reads just like an earlys novel, with all the problematic content being there,

The basic premise of this book is a young girl named Gemma Doyle, is whisked away to a London boarding school after the death of her mother.
Before her mothers death, she is given a necklace and she is forced to realize that she is way more important and special than she ever thought! Shes the hero that can heal the realms and save the world!

Then, at the boarding school that is meant to turn these girls into desirable young ladies to be married off, Gemma falls into a group with three other girls.
Basically, the four girls start out like the cast of Mean Girls Gemma Cady, Felicity Regina, Pippa Gretchen, Ann Karen and events quickly escalate to them becoming the cast of The Craft Gemma Sarah, Felicity Nancy, Pippa Rochelle, Ann Bonnie.
Also, let the record state that I absolutely love Mean Girls and The Craft and this book is lesser in every single aspect, but the parallels are there.


This book is extremely racist and homophobic, but its painted in a way that says, “This is just how it was back in!” and it feels extremely bad to read.
And even though this is supposed to be a book about four friends coming together and forming a secret order, I feel like the term friends should be used very loosely.
There is so much catty girl hate in this book, that I truly believe my younger self would have hated this just as much inif I read it.


And the fat shaming is constant, It actually grosses me out to think about how many people read this book, read all these terrible and hurtful passages vilifying girls because they arent stick thin, and thought this book was okay.
And how this book handles selfharm is always disgusting,

Also, to touch upon the racism more, the male love interest is from India and is constantly fetishized for being not white, His exoticness is constantly brought up and Gemma is shamed by herself and her peers for liking him, Also, the word Gpsy is used constantly, and the Romani people in general are one big stereotype that is painful to read,

There are also a ton of misogynistic comments, but the book tries to battle those a bit, Ive had many people tell me that Libba Bray is a feminist writer, but this is the perfect example of what white feminism looks like, Like, this was a fucking mess, And a lates setting doesnt excuse it,

Trigger warnings for selfharm, suicide, murder, animal cruelty, substance abuse and everything offensive under the sun,

As for positive things I can say, I will say that this was an extremely fast read! Even with this beingpages, I read this quickly within two days.
And each chapter does end in a way that makes you want to read more,

I also really enjoyed the atmosphere of this book, especially during the Halloween season, Its a super old and creepy boarding school, with mysteries and magic surrounding it constantly! I mean, the setting was eerie and amazing, And even though nothing much happens until the lastpages, this book still feels spooky,

This is just my personal opinion, and I hope you all will respect that, Also, if this is one of your favorite books then I am happy you found enjoyment from it, Overall, for me, I was super disappointed to read this, Especially because this was my first time participating in a traveling book club! But it is what it is, and I will never support a book with this much problematic and offensive content, regardless the year it was published.


This book should just be renamed to A Terrible Gemma Doyle,

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This is the first book I have read by Libba Bray who is, in fact, quite the prolific author and incredibly popular amongst fans of Young Adult literature.
My interest was peaked in Brays writing after reading an article she had written here for EW, Upon reading Brays article I immediately ordered both A Great and Terrible Beauty and Beauty Queens by the author, Seeing her discuss the influences and objectives of her young adult work made me see them in a much more complex light than perhaps the blurbs alone would have.
Not only did my first foray into her work not disappoint, it far exceeded all of my expectations, A Great and Terrible Beauty is the first in her Gemma Doyle series and what a beginning it is,

The year isand our story follows Gemma Doyle, a young woman from a wealthy English family who has spent her entire life thus far growing up in India.
After tragedy strikes, however, her life is uprooted and she is sent to board at a girls finishing school in England, Her life in England is far more than elocution lessons and keeping up with this seasons latest fashions Miss Doyle is haunted by visions of another world, one both terrifying and beautiful.


This book melds togetherth century Britain, female friendships, sexual awakenings and magic, The story and characters are engaging and mysterious with so much more bubbling under the surface, There is so much I enjoyed about this first book in the series that it is difficult to condense my feelings for you in one blog post, but here I go.


For one, the characters are complex each has their good and their bad qualities, their virtues and their vices, Those of Gemmas fellow students who may initially seem like your cliche mean girls upon her arrival in England, gradually have their layers peeled back and their persons exposed.
These are young women struggling with the confines of their time and station, dreaming of lives where they can make choices of their own rather than to suit the demands of their families and society.


The book embodies a sense of longing throughout a longing to know oneself and a longing to belong, to be accepted whilst clambering to stand out.
Not forgetting a carnal longing, which is far more unfamiliar to these once girls who find themselves becoming young women, To explore themselves truly, however, is made all the more difficult by the restrictive confines of their contemporary society where womens roles are constructed in order to serve the male elite.
In these circumstances who would not find the call of a magical order made up entirely of women seductive

Brays book shines a light on the individuality of women in a time when they were allowed very little.
She allows them freedom in this and other worlds to explore themselves and their desires, At the same time, they may want to tread cautiously whilst they discover their own boundaries and challenge those that have been imposed upon them,

Dare I describe this as the historical feminist fantasy novel that I never knew I always wanted Bring on book two,

A Great and Terrible Beauty is neither great nor beautiful, though it is indeed wait for it! terrible,

The characters are simple and onedimensional, their actions both petty and selfish, I find it difficult to believe any one of the four girls at the heart of the story cared for one another, much less anyone else.
The story meanders, often digressing into lengthy passages that do little if anything to advance the characters or the story, As the story progresses, drawing to its predictable and dissatisfying conclusion, it becomes clear that Ms Bray has mistaken style for subtance and that her prose is not stylish enough to support this belief.


Most offensive, however, is the racial and sexual content within the book, The male lead a young man from India is sexualized and fetishized for his "exotic" appearance and culture other Indian characters are shown as either submissive or violent.
The Romani people wandering the schoolgrounds suffer from even greater stereotyping: the men are portrayed as slovenly, ignorant, and sexually aggressive towards the white schoolgirls the women are docile and suitably mystical.


Her treatment of the female characters is also questionable, Though these Victorian girls wander about with decidedly unVictorian sensibilities and though Ms Bray makes a weak attempt to decry the injustices of a society so quick to condemn the expression of feminine sexuality, the story itself does not support this modern take on the Victorian era.
The girls submit to their male counterparts or pine helplessly from a distance, Sexual and romantic relationships between men and women often contain obvious and disturbing power imbalances or violent undertones, The relationship between the four girls is emotionally shallow and deeply petty, motivated by mutual dislike and composed of backstabbing and bullying tactics, And though Ms Bray is quick to condemn the indignities and horrors of an arranged marriage, she is also quick to condemn her protagonists when they dare to act instead of react.
It's a confusing mix of selfrighteous pulpit pounding and misogyny, with the end result being I wanted to put my fist through the admittedly lovely and eyecatching cover.


My one relief is that I had the sense to

borrow this from the library instead of buying it outright, I do not recommend it, I swiped this out of the classroom one day because I had lunch duty and my choices were A stare at the perpetual hacky sack game forminutes or B read something.
As you can see, I didn't have much of a choice at all it was one of those Eddie Izzard "Cake or death" scenarios, When I began the book, I was immediately hookedexotic locale, spirited protagonist, hint of the supernatural, However, it was a case of infatuationatfirstsight that burned out rather quickly, After finishing the book, I was left with an overwhelming sensation of "meh, "

Why did the book lose my interest so quickly Here's a quickly compiled list of possible reasons:

A Began in India, but then switched to an isolated boarding school for girls in Victorian England.
Come on! They lost me as soon as they left an amazing setting with all kinds of possibility for a mediocre one,

B It's a young adult book and those don't always sit well with me, I just couldn't connect to the four girls that form the clique in the book, Case in point: they begin dabbling in witchcraft and one uses her power to create the perfect Prince Charming and one uses hers toshock!be beautiful.
Puhleaze.

C Speaking of the four girls, stereotypes in the extreme: the mysterious one with a dark secret the beautiful, but tragic one the rebellious spirit and the plain girl who doesn't belong in this world of prestige and riches.


So why did I give it aIt's fairly well written, it has an interesting premise though the execution falls flat, there are a few genuinely funny moments,and it will probably appeal to the intended audience.
I may read the sequels, but it will be a bit before I muster up the interest in doing so,

Cross posted at sitelinkThis Insignificant Cinder,